Dashboard is the first thing you see when login to ProjectOffice.net.
In the application header you can notice that your own working space is selected
by default.
First thing you need to do is to edit your personal information by clicking the
“My Settings” link button. Here you can edit your profile in “My
Profile” tab and change your password in the “Change Password”
tab.
The Dashboard is fully customizable, so you can simply drag these boxes and drop
them where it suits you most. You can also resize the boxes to fit.
My Projects – presents details about all projects you are a member
of, your team and the tasks assigned to each team member.
The 4 icons next to each team member’s name are: timesheet, time-off requests, expenses
and tasks; all when highlighted mean that there is a certain action performed.
Recent Changes – displays every change in every space that has
been made, as well as the other details, such as who made the change, when and where.
My Tasks List – shows a list of all of your tasks for the current
day.
My To-Do List – place where you can create a personal to-do list
only you can see.
Calendar – all tasks’ start and end dates are bolded. Clicking
on a specific date, the Calendar Module opens. There you can see your activities
in details.
Projects&Tasks Module is the starting point for your projects
organization.
There are 3 main menu items in the “Projects&Tasks Menu”:
Projects; Tasks and Resources. Follow
them bellow…
Projects
This is the place to officially start with managing your projects. There are 2 main
sections to be explained:
Projects Menu – includes the “Create new project” link button.
By clicking on it the “New Project” section appears. You need to enter Project name
and Project description, create your project team, and determine project’s start
and end date. These are the mandatory fields; all the others are optional and should
be fulfilled if you need them.
Projects – is a list of your projects, as well as related information,
such as: Project Name, Start date, End date, Status, Customer, and who created the
project. The column “View” consists of “Task sheet view” and “Gantt view” which
link to the specific sections, respectively.
Moreover, if there is a wiki and/or issue created for the specific project, in the
“Actions” column particular icons are shown. When clicking on the specific icon
the application takes you to the wiki or issue accordingly.
Tasks
What is next after you created your project?
The next step is to assign tasks to your team members. When you click the “Tasks”
menu item you see the following:
Tasks – is a list of all tasks with the option to filter tasks
by project. It also shows information about: Task Name, Start date, End date, Duration,
Actual Work, ETC, % completed, predecessors and list of assigned resources to the
specific task.
Clicking on a certain task the “Task Information” opens which allows you
to edit the task. The “Update your task progress” link button takes you
to the “Day View” timesheet where you report the actual working hours you
spent on the task, as well as the estimated completion time or % completed. Afterwards,
in the “Task Information” section you can view your estimated time to completion
in the “My ETC” box and your % completed in the “My % completed” box.
The “% completed” column in the task sheet view combines the “task progress and
status bar” and is shown either in green, yellow or red depending if the
task is on time, late, or critically late.
Moreover, if there is a wiki and/or issue created for the specific task, in the
“Actions” column particular icons are shown. When clicking on the specific icon
the application takes you to the wiki or issue accordingly.
Tasks Menu – includes 3 link buttons: “Create new task”;
“Task sheet view” and “Gantt chart view”.
By clicking on the “Create new task” link button the “Task Information”
section appears. In the first tab “General” you need to fill in the task
name, task description, task team and determine the task start date, end date and
task duration.
If the task is considered to be a milestone in your project, mark the check box
“Mark as a milestone”.
To additionally improve your project management, click the “Predecessors”
tab and set predecessors of the task.
By clicking on the “Task sheet view” the “Tasks” section
appears with a list of all tasks.
By clicking on the “Gantt chart view” all tasks in a particular project
you selected are visually presented.
On the left side of the section, the task sheet view is presented. You have the
opportunity to “Insert”, “Hide”, “Edit” and “Sort”
columns. These options are available with a right click on the header of the tasks
sheet.
By clicking on the “View full screen” link button you can view the Gantt
chart in full size.
Resources
Before you create projects and tasks you must have available resources which will
work on your projects and tasks. By clicking on the “Resources”
menu item you will be able to create your resource pool by inviting people to join
your team. When you click the “Resources” menu item you see the
following:
Resources Menu - includes the “Add new resource” link
button. By clicking on it, the “New Resource” section appears. Here you
need to fill in the Resource name and Resource e-mail and select the role from the
drop down list – Space manager, Project manager, Team member or Guest (details
on the roles). Press “Save&Close” to finish the process.
Resources – complete list of your resources in your resource pool.
This section displays information about: Resource name, role, e-mail and
status (active if he works on the space, or inactive if he had been deactivated
from the space).
Clicking on the specific resource the “Resource Information” section appears
where you can edit the Resource name and Resource role, so you would see them in
the project as you want to. Resource’s e-mail is not editable information.
Time&Expenses Module provides organization and control of your
time management and expenses tracking.
There are 4 main menu items in the “Time&Expenses Menu”:
Timesheets; Expenses; Time Offs and
Approvals. By clicking on each, the application takes you to the
specific menu item. Follow them bellow…
Timesheet
After you spend some time working on the task assigned to you, the next step is
to report the working hours spent on that task. When you click on the “Timesheets”
menu item you see the following:
Timesheets – provides the ability to select day, week or all timesheets
view.
Day View or Week View – When the Day View” or “Week View”
is selected, daily or weekly overview of the working hours spent on the specific
task are presented. Here you need to report the actual hours spent on the task for
the current day, as well as the estimated completion time or % completed. Also,
overtime is calculated and approved time offs are displayed.
Moreover, you can add notes to specific task with clicking the icon in the “Notes”
column.
Expenses
“Expenses” allow you to create expense reports, if any expenses
occur on the project or task.
When you click the “Expenses” menu item, appears the list of all
expenses you’ve created along with the expense description, project for which the
expense is made, expense status, date incurred and the total sum of the expense
included. Moreover, you can filter the expenses by status: Open, Waiting, Approved
or Rejected.
Expenses – includes the “Create new expense” link button.
By clicking on it, the “New Expense” section appears where you can create
new expense.
Create New Expense – in this section you need to fill in the expense
general description, date, project for which the expense is made and you can select
particular task in the selected project from the tasks drop down list. You can explain
the expense in details in the comments section. In the second half of this section
you need to enter the expense Detailed description, Date, choose the expense type
from the Type drop-down list, select the currency from the drop down list and enter
the expense amount. Moreover, you can request reimbursement if you select the Reimburse
check box. You can submit the expense to the project owner by clicking the “Submit”
button, as well as “Save&Close” to finish the process.
Time Offs
By clicking the “Time Offs” menu item you can submit your request
to your Project Owner if you need to request a time off.
Time Offs– in this section, by clicking the “Create new time off
request” link button, you can create a new time off request. After the
“New Time off request” section appears, first select the Time off code
(Day off, Vacation, Sick or Other) from the drop down list provided. Then choose
start and end dates for the request and the number of working Hours. You can explain
the reason for the absence in the Comments section. You can submit your time off
to your Project Owner by clicking the “Submit” button and press “Save&Close”
to finish the process.
Time Off Requests – this section displays the list of all time
off requests with included information about the selected Time off code, time off
Status, time off dates, time off Total hours and is there a time off comment. Moreover,
you can filter the time offs by status: Open, Waiting, Approved or Rejected.
Approvals
After the timesheets, expenses or time-off requests submission, they can be either
approved or rejected only by the Project Owner. Therefore, this option can be viewed
only by the Project Owner. When you click on the “Approvals” menu
item you see the following:
Approvals – this section displays a list of all approvals and allows
filtering requests either for Timesheets, Expenses or Time off requests.
“Wikis” Module enables you to share your knowledge with your team
members about the tasks or projects you are working on.
Wikis Menu - There is 1 main menu item in this section: “Projects&Tasks”.
Clicking on this menu items you can see the “My Projects&Tasks” section
which provides you with a list of all projects and tasks. Moreover, if you have
a wiki created for a particular project there is an icon displayed by the project
and task name. Clicking on the icon or on the project or task name at the “My Projects&Tasks”
section provides an opportunity to view and access the wiki created for the selected
project or task.
(Project/Task Name) - this section shows the content of the wiki
created for the selected project or task.
Wiki Page Menu – enables adding a new paragraph to a specific wiki
created for a particular project or task by simply clicking on the “Add new paragraph”
link button. While you are adding new paragraphs to a wiki or editing an existing
one you need to have the wiki page locked with simply clicking on the “Lock”
link button. This avoids the risk of editing the wiki page by several persons at
the same time, which might cause confusion in the wiki content. After you finish
with editing the wiki for particular project or task click the “Unlock”
link button, so afterwards others can edit it, or if you do not want to save the
changes which you have made click the “Undo lock” link button to return
to the initial content of the wiki page.
Projects & Tasks – by clicking on a specific project or task
name you can navigate from the currently opened wiki and view another wiki created
for the selected project or task.
The Issue Tracking System of ProjectOffice.net allows you and everyone within your
space to easily assign issues, track the status and view the history of the issue
changes. When you select the Issues Module you see the following:
Issues Menu – includes the “Issues” menu item. By clicking
it the list of all issues appears.
Issues Options – includes two link buttons: “Create new issue”
and “History”. By clicking on “Create new issue”, the “Issue information”
section appears. Here, you need to enter the issue Title, select the Project and/or
Task for which the issue is created and select the issue Type, Severity and Priority.
Next, assign the issue to the person who is in charge for solving it and enter the
Description of the issue.
Also, if there is a certain file related you can attach it to the issue.
If “History” is clicked, a list of all issue and changes made to them is
presented. Here, the history consists of: Issue ID, Title, Action (what has been
changed), Resource (who made the change), Date&Time and Go-To (links to details
of all issue changes). Also, the history can be filtered by several criteria. On
the left side there is the “Issues history details” section, which presents
the issue change details.
Issues List – displays the list of all issues you have created.
This section includes 10 columns: issue ID; Attachments; Issue title; Priority (High,
Medium, Normal, Low); Status (Open, Analyzed, Closed, Assigned, Resolved, Verified,
Reopened, In Progress); Type (Bug, Documentation, Testing, feature, other); Severity
(Show Stopper, Critical, major, minor); Assigned to (the person who is in charge
for solving it); Created by (the person who have added the issue) and Date created.
Moreover, you have the opportunity to filter issues by Project, Task, Type, to who
the issue is assigned, Priority, Status, Severity and Dates created.
Project Summary – summarizes the issues for all or selected projects
and/or tasks (depending on what you filter) in 4 sections: Priority, Status, Type
and Severity. By clicking for example, issues with priority high, the list of all
issues with high priority will open in the “Issues list”.
The Calendar Module helps you organize your work.
The Calendar presents monthly view of all your activities (Tasks, Due tasks, Milestones,
Overdue timesheets, Approved time offs).
Also it provides the opportunity to filter the items in the calendar by: Space and/or
Project; and desired specific items can be chosen to be displayed.
